Brett Devereaux of A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry has just started a series on Victoria II: https://acoup.blog/2021/08/13/collections-teaching-paradox-victoria-ii-part-i-mechanics-and-gears/
I haven't actually read it yet (just about to start), but I reckon we should have a thread for discussing how wrong he is (or not), and any languishistic tangents.
I didn't see any major mistakes, just the one about pops representing the whole population rather than adult males (which by the time I read this he'd already corrected)
Two reasons Victoria sucked as a game:
-They created this massive and elaborate system that just didn't work. it was an awesome design but probably too ambitious.
-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.
I think that Vic 2 worked to the extent that it demonstrated how frustrating it is as a player when the economic model decides what your capitalists are going to build, but how ineffective state control is. I also liked the way a little education of your people was worse than ignorance, and how carefully a government had to be to thread the needle of enough freedoms to avoid revolt but not enough to create unfulfillable expectations. It's the only game I can think of that had players appreciating the value of limiting the franchise.
Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2021, 10:48:31 AM
-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.
1. How many successful 19th century Communist economies can one name?
2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?
3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?
Quote from: grumbler on August 14, 2021, 11:40:10 AM
I think that Vic 2 worked to the extent that it demonstrated how frustrating it is as a player when the economic model decides what your capitalists are going to build, but how ineffective state control is. I also liked the way a little education of your people was worse than ignorance, and how carefully a government had to be to thread the needle of enough freedoms to avoid revolt but not enough to create unfulfillable expectations. It's the only game I can think of that had players appreciating the value of limiting the franchise.
Yes that was probably the intent and would have been great if it worked but it didn't. Any faint short-term disadvantage from zerg-rushing toward a late 20th century Scandinavian welfare democracy was easily offset by the grand benefits.
And to also address one of Minsky's points above: obviously, in terms of historic success, democracies and welfare states have won. Even after WW1 only democratic regimes (plus the UK :P ) survived the aftermath.
The problem comes from the game's simulation of the era it depicts. Austria (or Russia) did not refrain from modern reforms because they were evil entities oppressing minorities on general principle. They refrained because the ruling class didn't think they could remain ruling class if they did so. And incidentally, they were right.
If the needle-threading of balancing progress vs. keeping your country together was in the game like grumbler suggested, then this would be fine: you play a multi-ethnic monarchy you should be having a increasingly hard time playing through the game's period, and you should have a big but fun challenge of reforming in time without disintegrating in the process.
But that was never in Vicky 2 in practice, only on paper. Maybe one of the big mods achieved more with that, I haven't really played any of them. But with vanilla, whether you were France, Austria, Russia, or any other country, the way to dominance was as many electoral and human right reforms as quickly as possible, because there was next to no side effect of such a rush.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 16, 2021, 10:06:33 AM
2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?
Also for interesting Victoria II countries: Japan. But I'm not sure where they sit.
Quote3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?
So the game's from the perspective of a ruler - and I think it poses risk. Education and enlightenment were normally parts of modernisation projects that were necessary to survive, but created lots of internal instability and potentially made you prey to the imperial powers. So an educated/enlightend population is the key to success if you can get there (Meiji) but also, potentially, something that could expose you even more either externally or internally (Qing China, Egypt, Iran, arguably the Ottomans).
In every example I think it can and should be pretty fraught - modernisation normally didn't go well (off the top of my head Japan is the only example I can think of).
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 16, 2021, 10:06:33 AM
2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?
I'd be very careful trying to draw conclusions too deeply from that. 'More democracy ≡ more prosperity' doesn't always hold up, and those countries had other points of commonality, like vast colonial empires primed for development and resource extraction, coupled with the early adoption of industrial techniques. The political system wasn't irrelevant, but it wasn't the end all, be all either.
I thought Franz Joseph made some hay among the Socialists by sometimes presenting himself as the father of the little guy against the evil liberal capitalists? I could see the Habsburgs or Romanovs doing Bismarckian paternalistic things to stave off political reforms for sure.
Quote from: Neil on August 16, 2021, 10:21:34 AM
I'd be very careful trying to draw conclusions too deeply from that. 'More democracy ≡ more prosperity' doesn't always hold up, and those countries had other points of commonality, like vast colonial empires primed for development and resource extraction, coupled with the early adoption of industrial techniques. The political system wasn't irrelevant, but it wasn't the end all, be all either.
And I think that is also reflected in the modernisation attempts. So a lot of those countries that tried to modernise (Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Egypt) had intellectuals with competing views about the appropriate models because some went to study in France or the US or Prussia/Germany or Japan and learned different things from them.
In the case of Japan there was a conscious modelling of different bits of modernisation on different national systems to get the best from what they could learn, but that was also tried elsewhere if, perhaps, less coherently. That should probably be reflected - that there were these different approaches (French, British, Japanese, American, German).
Quote from: Sheilbh on August 16, 2021, 10:20:09 AM
Also for interesting Victoria II countries: Japan. But I'm not sure where they sit.
I wasn't sure either. Because AR's question focused on the 19th century specifically and because I don't think Japan was recognized as a great power peer until 1905, I dodged the issue.
Quote3.So the game's from the perspective of a ruler - and I think it poses risk. Education and enlightenment were normally parts of modernisation projects that were necessary to survive, but created lots of internal instability and potentially made you prey to the imperial powers. So an educated/enlightend population is the key to success if you can get there (Meiji) but also, potentially, something that could expose you even more either externally or internally (Qing China, Egypt, Iran, arguably the Ottomans).
In every example I think it can and should be pretty fraught - modernisation normally didn't go well (off the top of my head Japan is the only example I can think of).
The game models that - "plurality" increases tech progress but also reform demand and revolt risk.
The problem is that the game doesn't make that revolt risk that difficult for the player because otherwise it would swamp the AI. But the essential system design in is pretty sound.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 16, 2021, 10:06:33 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2021, 10:48:31 AM
-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.
1. How many successful 19th century Communist economies can one name?
2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?
3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?
That those questions have consensus answers in the 21st century isn't my point.
In the 19th those questions did not, and the conflict around them was a theme of the time. I don't think 19th century autocrats, proponents of deeply religious education, or communists thought their philosophies were leading to stagnation or even ruin. The game mechanics make it tough to really role play proponents of anything other than liberal democracy.
Quote from: alfred russel on August 16, 2021, 02:56:21 PM
The game mechanics make it tough to really role play proponents of anything other than liberal democracy.
That's true but the design philosophy in Vicky has always privileged trying to get historically plausible outcomes over role playing aspects.
Of course any game that to some degree aims at historical simulation needs incentives for players to act (broadly) historical to be fully enjoyable. It's probably easier in a game where you play 19th century ideologies than a game where you play 19th century states (you could give victory points for spreading your ideology etc, but a state that has substandard ideologies will suffer). It's not like people in the 19th century were groping around in the dark either, the value of moderation and reasonably free enterprise (for instance) was known to non-kooks, the mechanisms behind this had been described in the 18th century (and parts of them even earlier).
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 16, 2021, 10:06:33 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2021, 10:48:31 AM
-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.
2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?
Well, Germany was a top tier country and Russia and Austria-Hungary were experiencing explosive economic growth before the war. If the war hadn't happened, it's hard to say who things would have went. Austria-Hungary would probably still have fell apart, but would Russia have?
Russia was not exactly incredibly stable in 1914. The Tsar was terrified after the massacre in the Siberian Gold Mine enraged the workers and his regime was getting attacked from the right because he was always selling out the Serbs. He felt like going to war was necessary to strengthen his regime. So long as Nicholas and Alexandra were in charge Russia was always going to be on the brink of disaster, war or no war. Remember they were just sort of in a lull after 1905.
I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.
Quote from: Valmy on August 16, 2021, 09:24:49 PM
I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.
Yeah I think there's been a big revisionist push on Austria-Hungary in the last 20 years, that actually it may have been more stable and there were movements and ideas around to build out the institutions that might have stabilised it in the long-term. It seems like the image that I've always had of the ramshackle, Ruritanian Empire Without Qualities is a bit unfair.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 16, 2021, 09:17:50 PM
Well, Germany was a top tier country and Russia and Austria-Hungary were experiencing explosive economic growth before the war. If the war hadn't happened, it's hard to say who things would have went. Austria-Hungary would probably still have fell apart, but would Russia have?
Germany was not an autocracy; it was a federal state with a real parliament with universal male suffrage. A parliament whose leading party was the Marxist-inspired SPD for much of the latter part of this period.
I would not call Russian economic growth "explosive" unless the intent was to refer to the political radicalism of the industrial workers. Russsian GDP per capita grew 63.4% between 1885 to 1913, a good performance that was slightly lower than neighboring Germany (64.4%) but higher than France (57.9%). Of course Russia had the benefit of growing from a much lower base and with big infusions of foreign capital. Perhaps a more comparable example was Finland, which grew per capital GDP by 71.5% in the same period.
Quote from: Sheilbh on August 16, 2021, 09:38:50 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 16, 2021, 09:24:49 PM
I think Austria-Hungary might have been more stable, at least in areas where Germans or Hungarians were the majority, but I might just think that because I know comparatively less about it.
Yeah I think there's been a big revisionist push on Austria-Hungary in the last 20 years, that actually it may have been more stable and there were movements and ideas around to build out the institutions that might have stabilised it in the long-term. It seems like the image that I've always had of the ramshackle, Ruritanian Empire Without Qualities is a bit unfair.
Yugoslavia had far more factors keeping it together than A-H look how that turned out.
The war accelerated things that were already there. e.g. one of the big reason for wanting to punish Serbia was to counter the uppity Serbian citizens of Hungary. They (internal Serbs) were being dealt quite harshly. Romanian citizens had a fairly lenient approach because of the alliance with Romania, which still made it easier for ideas of joining up with Romania spread, so wasn't exactly a solution for the regime, either.
Perhaps more importantly, while Czechs and Croats were fairly easy to "cut out" as an autonomous part if wanted, all other minorities were inside Hungary, the political unity of which was of utmost importance to the Hungarian ruling class and I am pretty sure for the population as well (or at least could be easily riled up for it). Ethnic Hungarians were slightly below 50% of Hungary's population there was intense paranoia around something what ended up happening with the country happening.
How A-H fell apart was decided by the war and probably 5 million ethnic Hungarians would not have ended up on the wrong side of their nation state's border if A-H was let to disintegrate on its own, but still it would have probably happened in a Yugoslavia-style ethnic-cleansing heavy civil war.
Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?
It would have been nice to better balance regimes and give more strengths and weaknesses to them, making a few desirable paths to try to follow.
Its been eons since I played. IIRC going down the dictatorship route does reduce war exhaustion to an extent? Albeit not enough.
Quote from: Threviel on August 17, 2021, 12:46:26 AM
Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?
István Tisza, who was the dominating Hungarian leader of the ww1 and prior years, was arrogantly dismissing representatives of the Serbian community even in late 1918 as the Entente armies were coming up the Balkans with no resistance.
There was absolutely no political appetite for any such compromises.
Quote from: Threviel on August 17, 2021, 12:46:26 AM
Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?
Didn't Franz Ferdinand have some plan for a federalized Austria-Hungary?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 18, 2021, 11:14:12 PM
Quote from: Threviel on August 17, 2021, 12:46:26 AM
Would it be conceivable for Hungary to go federal on its own? A federal state within a federal state?
Didn't Franz Ferdinand have some plan for a federalized Austria-Hungary?
All I remember he had plans for a more centralised state unst4d of having to please the Hungarians. Needless to say few regretted his death.
FF had an ambition to raise the Slavs to be equal to the Germans and Magyars in the Empire. Not a hit with the Magyars or Serbs.
Robert Allen wrote about the performance and prospects of the late Tsarist economy. In summary although the output statistics were good from 1885-1913, the structural development of the economy was limited: the share of labor (85%-->81%) and value added output (59%-->51%) declined very slowly. And although value added output increased in heavy industry from a very low starting point, much of that was railway construction, heavily foreign financed, built for the principal purpose of transporting grain for export. Russian growth for the period appears strong because wholesale grain prices rose significantly in the period and because Russian crop yields were extremely low in the 1880s - while Russian agriculture was still relatively inefficient in 1913 compared to other leading grain exporters, productivity increased significantly from a very low base.
The 1913 Russian economy looks quite a bit like a poorer version of Argentina, led by a strong agricultural export sector and with a lagging industrial sector that the state was attempting to prop up using import substitution strategies. That model performed very poorly after WW1.
In short I think to the extent Victoria's model operates from the premise that autocratic regimes that do not prioritize mass education and literacy will lag significantly behind more flexible polities that invest in mass education (like Germany or the western democracies) in terms of industrial development it is well grounded.
Part II - "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
https://acoup.blog/2021/08/20/collections-teaching-paradox-victoria-ii-part-ii-the-ruin-of-war/